Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed nose of mine ! what will you not be smelling ? What tactless asses we are, you and I, boney nose, always indiscriminate, always unashamed, and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled poplars : a festering pulp on the wet earth beneath them. With what deep thirst we quicken our desires to that rank odor of a passing springtime ! Can you not be decent ? Can you not reserve your ardors for something less unlovely ? What girl will care for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways ? Must you taste everything ? Must you know everything ? Must you…
Rather notice, mon cher, that the moon is tilted above the point of the steeple than that its color is shell-pink. Rather observe that it is early morning than that the sky is smooth as a turquoise. Rather grasp how the dark converging lines of the steeple meet at the pinnacle— perceive how its little ornament tries to stop them— See how it fails ! See how the converging lines of the hexagonal spire escape upward— receding, dividing ! —sepals that guard and contain the flower ! Observe how motionless the eaten moon lies in the protecting lines. It is true : in the light colors of morning brown-stone and slate shine orange and dark blue. But observe the oppressive weight…
Thus, weary of life, in view of the great consummation which awaits us — tomorrow, we rush among our friends congratulating ourselves upon the joy soon to be. Thoughtless of evil we crush out the marrow of those about us with our heavy cars as we go happily from place to place. It seems that there is not time enough in which to speak the full of our exaltation. Only a day is left, one miserable day, before the world comes into its own. Let us hurry ! Why bother for this man or that ? In the offices of the great…
I realize that the chapters are rather quick in their sequence and that nothing much is contained in any one of them but no one should be surprised at this today. THE TRADITIONALISTS OF PLAGIARISM It is spring. That is to say, it. is approaching THE BEGINNING. In that huge and microscopic career of time, as it were a wild horse racing in an illimitable pampa under the stars, describing immense and microscopic circles with his hoofs on the solid turf, running without a stop for the millionth part of a second until lie is aged and worn to a heap…
Why should I go further than I am able ? Is it not enough for you that I am perfect ?…
Is what I have written prose ? The only answer is that form in prose ends with the end of that which is being communicated — If the power to go on falters in the middle of a sentence — that is the end of the sentence — Or if a new phase enters at that point it is only stupidity to go on. There is no confusion — only difficulties.…
What do they mean when they say : « I do not like your poems ; you have no faith whatever. You seem neither to have suffered nor, in fact, to have felt anything very deeply. There is nothing appealing in what you say but on the contrary the poems are positively repellant. They are heartless, cruel, they make fun of humanity. What in God’s name do you mean ? Are you a pagan ? Have, you no tolerance for human frailty ? Rhyme you may perhaps take away but rythm ! why there is none in your work whatever. Is this what you call poetry ? It…